


Boredom in Potions

by knowyourincantations



Series: Sapphic September 2019 [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: A character is outed, Don't copy to another site, F/F, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Potions Class (Harry Potter), Pre-Relationship, Sapphic September, Sapphic September 2019, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 09:50:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20526038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knowyourincantations/pseuds/knowyourincantations
Summary: Parvati messes up her potion and gives up for the rest of the lesson. She isn't the only one.





	Boredom in Potions

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Sapphic September Day 5: "Please"

Parvati was carefully lowering the heat under her cauldron in small increments when a commotion across the room caught her attention. She only looked away for a moment, just long enough to see it was Pansy and Daphne causing a fuss.

That moment was all it took. When she turned back to her potion it had turned the colour of sour milk, and smelled even worse. With Slughorn snoring at his desk, and Hermione getting touchier and touchier about helping other people the closer they got to the N.E.W.T.s, she sighed in defeat and vanished the ruined potion.

With nothing left to do, she sat on her stool and rested her elbow on the desk. She propped her chin on her palm, turning her attention across the room to where Pansy and Daphne were still bickering. If she had to be stuck there until the end of class with nothing to do, at least there was entertainment.

It wasn’t often the Slytherins fought amongst themselves, but it was always amusing when they did. The only time they dropped their dignified airs was when they fought. Not right away, they usually managed to still look dignified at the beginning at least, stony voices and small gestures, but it seemed Pansy and Daphne had moved beyond that already.

Daphne was holding a large, scrunched up piece of parchment while Pansy tried to snatch it from her hand. Over the summer, Daphne had shot up to match even Ron in height, but Pansy hadn’t grown at all. In fact, Parvati was fairly sure she was shorter than Harry.

“I swear if you don’t give it back I will make your life hell!” Pansy hissed loudly, lurching forward to try and snatch the parchment again.

Daphne easily held it out of her reach, scoffing as she did so.

“Oh please, you don’t have anything new on me,” she said, sounding delighted. “You’ve been too busy lately to pay attention, and now I see why. My, my, my, Pansy, how unexpected.”

Draco turned around and hissed at them to shut up, but Daphne ignored him completely. Arms held up high, she pulled the parchment taut and looked over it.

Parvati tilted her head to try and see but the angle was all wrong. She’d seen Pansy doodling on parchment a lot since the year had started, but she’d never managed to see much. When they were paired in Defence, Pansy had been halfway through drawing a realistic portrait of Millicent when she’d noticed Parvati looking and hidden it away, and Parvati hadn’t managed to get a glimpse of anything else since.

“It’s not bad really,” Daphne mused. “Though you’ve flattered her by changing the shape of her nose a little. Lovely study of her hands. Well, I assume they’re her hands since she’s all over this. Are those her lips too? Gosh, darling, how transparent of you.”

In the most undignified manner Parvati had ever seen of her, Pansy jumped up to try and snatch the parchment away from Daphne.

Parvati looked over to Millicent, wondering if Pansy was drawing her again. It didn’t seem likely, Millicent had a lovely cute nose. One of the only attractive features of her face, in Parvati’s opinion. No need to flatter her with making it look nicer than it already was.

“What do you want for it then?” Pansy snapped, drawing another aggravated hiss out of Draco.

It seemed to bring Pansy’s awareness back to the room. She glanced around, her cheeks flushing pink. Parvati looked down at her textbook before Pansy noticed her looking.

She could just as easily have let Pansy know she’d seen her very undignified behaviour. The result would surely have been even more amusing.

But she was intrigued now. She wanted to know who Pansy had been drawing that would cause such a reaction.

It sounded like prime gossip. Beyond that, she couldn’t deny she was curious about the implications. Pansy hadn’t reacted that terribly when she’d caught Pansy looking at her sketch of Millicent, but now she’d drawn someone and was throwing an absolute fit about it being seen.

If it had been a sketch of a boy the meaning would be obvious, so it was just as obvious now.

And Parvati was kicking herself for not noticing sooner.

After a whispered exchange too quiet to hear, there was a loud clatter that drew Parvati’s attention back.

Draco had stepped away from his cauldron and snatched the parchment from Daphne. In the process, he seemed to have knocked over two jars on their table.

Pansy stood motionless, staring at him with open horror as he scanned the parchment. One of his eyebrows climbed to his hairline. He turned the parchment over and scanned the other side. When he finally looked at Pansy, she looked defeated and he looked delighted.

“Draco, give it back,” she tried.

Beside her, Daphne kept looking between them. She didn’t look delighted like Draco. In fact, she looked guilty and Parvati perked up. For all Daphne had been teasing her, she hadn’t shown the thing about either. Would Draco?

“I don’t think I will,” he said slowly, turning the parchment over again. “You made me spoil my potion.”

“Come on, give it back,” Daphne said, reaching for it herself.

Draco pulled away and smirked at her. “Oh? Don’t start something you can’t finish, Daphne.”

Pansy gripped the edge of the desk and looked alarmingly like she was about to cry. It was an utterly foreign expression on her face, and Parvati was riveted.

“Draco...Draco, _please_ don’t,” she said with a hitch in her voice.

Parvati almost choked on her inhale. She didn’t think she’d ever heard Pansy say please before. _Ever_. It suddenly made those implications a certainty. She had a crush on whoever it was she’d been drawing.

“Too late,” Draco sneered.

The fear on Pansy’s face morphed into anger.

“I will _ruin_ you!” she hissed. “I will tell everyone that you—”

“Don’t care, he already knows,” Draco said, turning and walking across the room.

He caught Parvati’s eye and walked right over to her table. When he dropped the parchment on the table in front of her, she frowned up at him for a moment, then looked down at it when he returned to his table with an ugly smirk on his face.

Across the room, Pansy made a low sound, but she stayed where she was.

Parvati looked over the parchment slowly. It looked like Pansy had been sketching on it for a couple of days. There were small studies of her face from different angles. One of them was from two days ago, when she’d been so bored in History of Magic she’d tried out an elaborate hairstyle. She was shocked she hadn’t noticed Pansy staring at her. She had to have been to capture it so clearly.

The attention to detail was rather breathtaking. She’d never seen enough of that sketch of Millicent to really form an opinion, but Pansy’s drawing was beautiful. In the spaces around sketches of her head and neck, there were hands in various gestures. She turned the parchment over and scanned the other side.

In the top right corner there was a sketch of her lips and chin. Taking up the rest of the parchment was an unfinished sketch of Parvati standing over her cauldron.

The page slid out of focus as Parvati considered the meaning of it.

The fact it was her should have no bearing on the conclusion she’d already come to.

She wondered if she should be annoyed, or repulsed. She probably should. Pansy wasn’t exactly the nicest girl in their year.

But, despite herself, she liked it. They were beautiful drawings and the attention to detail was very flattering.

And she wasn’t sure the attention really was unwanted, even if Pansy could be a right cow at times. She wasn’t so bad now, really.

Parvati turned and looked across the room.

Pansy was gone.

It took a moment for that to sink in. How upset she must have been to actually leave class and risk detention.

Parvati got up and moved across the room. When she reached Daphne and Pansy’s table, she held the parchment out wordlessly.

Daphne gave her a searching look, then took it from her and folded it carefully.

“You’re a shit friend,” Parvati muttered.

“I wasn’t going to show anyone,” Daphne said, glaring at the back of Draco’s head. “I just wanted to tease her a bit. I didn’t think it was that serious until she reacted so badly. We both messed up our potions early on. She wasn’t talking to me. I was bored.”

Parvati shook her head at her excuses and walked back over to her table. She collected her things and left the classroom. She didn’t much care if Slughorn woke up and realised she was gone. Gryffindor was already dead last in house points after Harry’s latest round of mucking about after curfew without his bloody cloak.

Anyway, she had a decent idea of where Pansy would run off to, and the least she could do was let her know she wasn’t angry or repulsed. She could very well understand how Pansy felt, since she certainly didn’t appear open about where her tastes lay. Parvati had been herself for years, but she could still remember a time she’d been scared to let people know. She would never have thought Pansy was scared of anything, but then, she’d also thought she’d never say please either.

For a class she’d mucked up, it certainly had been enlightening.

And maybe, if Pansy didn’t hex her on sight out of defensiveness or embarrassment, she might offer to sit and let Pansy take her time drawing her.

Perhaps at Hogsmeade.

**End.**

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed reading this, I'd really appreciate a comment to let me know, or [reblog this post](https://knowyourincantations.tumblr.com/post/187509593978/boredom-in-potions) on tumblr so others might see it too =)


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